Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
853 federal appellate · 307 district · 376 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,707 later decisions (104 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973), Ward v. Rock Against Racism (1989)
853 federal appellate · 307 district · 376 state decisions — followed in 38 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization · Thornhill v. Alabama · Williams v. Rhodes · Schneider v. State
Cited together with Freedman v. Maryland · City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co. · Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad · United States v. O'Brien · Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 2,707 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a law subjecting the exercise of First Amendment freedoms to the prior restraint of a license, without narrow, objective, and definite standards to guide the licensing authority, is unconstitutional.”
90 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“public welfare, peace, safety, health, decency, good order, morals or convenience”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“to roam essentially at will, dispensing or withholding permission to speak, assemble, picket, or parade according to their own opinions regarding the potential effect of the activity in question on the `welfare,' `decency,' or `morals' of the community.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.